FALASHA (Falà). - Emigrant, from Ge'ez Falata (to migrate). - Small groups of Jewish religion in northern Ethiopia, in the area between Quara to the west of Lake Tana and Semien. They speak an Agau language (a Hamitic language).
J. Halevy considered them descendants of Jews deported by the Abyssinians after the conquest of Yemen (6th century A.D.). I. Guidi believed them to originate from the Jewish military colonies placed at the frontiers under Psammeticus II (6th century B.C.). C. Conti Rossini linked them to the nuclei of Jewish merchants formed on the Eritrean coast, who, intermingled with natives, would have formed the Falashia populations.
Against the expeditions of the Abyssinian negus in 1332 and around 1390 the F. offered strenuous resistance, passing to the counterattack against Christian churches and monasteries. After the expedition of the negus Ishan (1414-29), there were massacres of F. under the negus Bo'eda Mārjām (1468-78) and Malak Sagad (1579, 1580 and 1585-86). The insurrection of the Falashia Gideon was put down and the leader killed (1623). From then on the F., subjugated and isolated, declined in number. The various confessions sought to convert them. Through the work of Jacques Faitlovich and S. H. Margulies a Jewish committee was established with the aim of helping the F. and of bringing them back to the Jewish religion of today, although certain scholars, such as Scheffelowitz, have doubts about their Israelite origin. The negus Hājiš Šellā offered Faitlovich a plot of land for the construction of a school for the F. Two young Falashia were sent to Florence and to Paris in order to prepare themselves for teaching.
The literature of the F. is of a religious character. In their writings they made use of the Ethiopian language (ge'ez) intermingled with Agau. They follow the Old Testament using solely the ge'ez translation that reached them from the Abyssinian Church and preserve certain apocrypha, likewise in Christian translation. The F. are ignorant of the Talmudic tradition. They spend the Sabbath, night and day, except for the hours of meals, in the synagogue; they preserve vestiges of the sacrificial cult. They observe the preceding fast, but not the feast of Purim; they are also ignorant of the Encenia. They celebrate Pentecost 37 days after Easter; but their calendar is empirical, so that the dates of the feasts fluctuate. For foods and their entire life they have severe laws of purity. Devoted for the most part to humble trades, they are therefore surrounded by disdain.
Bibliography8 works
Eugenio Zolli